A personal computer (PC) is a convenient tool to enhance and facilitate a user's experience with other technological advances, such as the Internet, word processing, or the like. Like many devices, a PC may occasionally experience a failure of operations of its operating system or may require periodic updates, upgrades, or the like. Unfortunately, this PC failure, commonly known as a crash, may be caused by software designed to disrupt operations of the operating system. For example, computer viruses, worms, adware, spyware, and the like are designed to disrupt and/or corrupt functions of the operating system.
A missing driver for a particular piece of hardware may also cause a PC's operating system to crash. For example, in order to use a particular device, such as a multi-function printer, a software driver must be installed to enable the PC to work with the printer. Absent such software driver, the multi-function printer will likely be unusable and the operating system of the PC may crash.
Another type of operating system crash may result from some of the PC's hardware being inaccessible (e.g., the hard drive, the memory, or the like).
In the event of a crash, the user frequently resorts to using an external device to service, including restore or repair, the operating system. For example, in a case of recovery or repair for a stand-alone PC, the user (e.g., a PC technician) usually runs a recovery CD-ROM disk in the PC's CD-ROM drive. The basic input and output system (BIOS) of the PC will assist the user in booting the PC from the CD-ROM drive to restore or repair the crashed operating system in the PC.
In another example, in a case of recovery or repair of a PC for which a bootable image of the PC is desirable, a network administrator or PC technician needs to access the bootable image of the operating system of the PC before recovering or repairing the PC. Occasionally, the bootable image is stored on a network, and the user not only needs to boot the PC from the CD-ROM drive but must also install a suitable driver for a network adapter installed in the PC. However, the network administrator may not have the suitable driver for the network adapter readily available and, thus, the PC recovery and/or repair cannot be completed until such driver is found.
Presently, some memory devices, including Universal Serial Bus (USB) flash memory drives and the like, provide relatively fast access to a PC. However, these devices lack a functional operating system to boot the PC. Common practices, such as booting from the CD-ROM drive, are reliable, but the CD-ROM drive has a relatively slow connection to the PC and lacks network connectivity for connecting the PC to a network
Accordingly, a self-contained computer servicing device is desired to address at least one or more of these and other disadvantages by servicing a computer from a device containing a functional operating system and providing network connectivity.